Quote Originally Posted by bigduke6 View Post
What are you planning to do ? there is little or nothing in the UKicon regarding Parkerising/ Phosphate products, I tend to mix my own, ( and it always varies) the basics are Phosphoric Acid, Manganese dioxide and wire wool......... this gives a grey to black finish.

You can use Zinc oxide instead of the Manganese, this will give a silver to grey finish, never used Zinc as yet.

There is a cold Black oxide kit that is very good that I use on small stuff such as bayonets etc, gives a black finish. see link bellow

Caswell Europe: Online Metal Finishing, Restoration & Renovation products
I've done a whole Bren body in this same stuff but I got it from here

Frost Metal Blacking Kit and Solutions | Frost Restoration

I think its selenium based and has had bad reports of it just rubbing off but I did the Bren about 6 years ago and it still looks 100%, no rubbing off and I did try to scrape it to test and it didn't scratch. I think the key to this stuff is to follow the instructions to the letter and prepare well (I used my shot blast cabinet and lots of disposable gloves and made sure the metal was warm).